GRRRRR.... Soft Top won't fit over cage (1 Viewer)

[pghfj40]

So... after much internal debate, I've decided NOT to sell my Land Cruiser... which is the point I was at when I found that my soft top doesn't fit over my rollcage. (This was merely the most recent in a string of Cruiser-build disappointments)


The rollcage rear supports are both too long and too wide. The sides will snap on (with protest), but the rear window won't zip shut... no matter what.

Part of me wants to chuck the entire cage off a cliff so I don't have to be reminded of my experience with it thus far.

The other part of me (the part that pays the bills) knows I can't afford to chuck the cage... so I'm at a point of deciding options:

A) never ever run the soft top; run only a bikini top or the hard top (not a desireable option)
C) see if a Paki top would fit better (is this squar-er/more vertical in the rear?)... i dunno if i want one of these tho, plus i don't have the $$ now
D) patch/re-sew the soft top to fit around the cage as it is (dunno how possible this is)
E) rework the cage

Because I'm a glutton for punishment, and I like to have things on the vehicle the way _I_ like 'em... I'm leaning toward Option E. Within that option, there are several paths:

1) have JC/Domination Chassis re-do it (HA! JK ...those who know, know)
2) re-work existing rear supports myself: remove the seats, fuel filler, cage, cut the rear supports out, shorten, re-notch, weld, re-paint
3) have MetalTech make me rear supports more like their family cage & weld em in myself (this will cost more but I now like the shape of the full cage better: less likely to flip backwards w/ a taller square)
4) find someone with a tube bender locally and have them do it (four bends)
5) hope that PJ buys a bender soon and have him do it for
6) buy a bender myself and do it (but I don't presently have the $$ for this option)


I like options 4 & 5 if I should be so lucky; wish i could do 6 for future projects' sake. Or maybe option 5.5... shared bender??

 

[pghfj40]

In more positive news... the wiring is complete

You can see my stainless kickplate/bracket in the lower left of the above photo and the upper right of the photo below... to give an idea of where the fuse panel is (that panel plus wiring took a LOT of real estate!)...

The grey watertite 3/4" conduit carries all wiring to my console controls (igntion switch, starter button, winch controls, compressor enable, locker controls (pre-wired for future use), and rear heater fan switch (OH! and eventual heated seats )...

The black heater hose is only just attached & looped back to the rear heater (not plumbed yet); the rear heater is under the console (freeing up rear floor space). I still need to work out a heater (water) control valve: the spare one i have from the 78 doesn't wanna fit on the 70's cluttered firewall. I'm currently planning on simply using a 1/2" ball valve inline.

 

[pghfj40]

You'll also notice my shiny heater core: i boiled it out w/ muriatic acid (thanks Tom! ).

Originally I planned to use the nicer spare '78 heater box, but it wouldn't have fit without relocating my cowl vent knob/mechanism AND rebending my shifter to clear the box's vents.... so back to the '70 box.

It turned out I had to use the spare '78 core in the '70 box cuz the PO installed a cupholder on the heater with sheetmetal screws... right through the heater core! I learned that the only reason it didn't leak before I boiled it out was because it was SO clogged that no coolant flowed in or out of it anyway. I welded shut all of his screw holes on the heater box & gave it a quickie paint job.

I still need to find hose for the defroster ducts which I'd like to have functional. It's about 2.25" in diameter. It'll be dang tight on the driver's side w/ the hi/lo range lever in the dash! I also need the square rubber boot in the (early) air duct if anyone has leads on this: mine's dry & cracked.

 

[Strangelove]

My heater ducts are flex tube from a "retired" PAT bus. Look fine, work well. I'll try to remember to take a pic and post it.

Is your Domination experience something you'd like to share? I'm eventually going to do a cage and thought about having Jay do it.

 

[pghfj40]

Is your Domination experience something you'd like to share? I'm eventually going to do a cage and thought about having Jay do it.

No... it's something I'd rather forget.

In short, nothing I did could get him to build the way I wanted-- even after re-work (I provided pictures, drawings, and mock-ups, oral & written verbal descriptions). And he never met continuously pushed-back deadlines. In the end I decided to cut my losses and move on, and feel lucky just to get my vehicle back without further expense and divergence from my design goals.

My rework of his work has cost me a lot of time & effort since... and I'm still not done (a fine example is I still have to address the gas leak from the tap he left broken off in the sender unit mounting holes--you saw/smelled the results of this in Wellsville).

I'll post up details of the experience when I get a second--I'm sure he'd argue that any disappointment on my end is my own fault exclusively.

 

[pghfj40]

Actually... to be fair to him... this issue (the soft top fitment) is not his fault explicitly: I gave him the bows (not the top itself), so he had no way to know that the back slanted (vs. went up vertically).

Though, thinking back, I think I did tell him to build the rear supports like the stock bar (which IIRC I left with him)... and that would of course have worked if he had duplicated it exactly. (It's not this particular, but the experience on the whole that was negative.)

I think part of the problem was he was young & still figurin how to run his business (e.g., estimate his time & also handling customers).

 

[pghfj40]

Ok... this wasn't supposed to be what this thread was about, but what the hey: I got a spare minute at the end of the day and got on a roll... so here are my specifics and people can decide for themselves whether to risk this much of their hard-earned $$$ there...

ROUND ONE (supposed to be rollcage with integrated seat mounts @ $1350):

1. Cage not removeable as agreed/paid-for (I had to literally cut it out of the vehicle and re-work the mounts)
2. Cage not "profile" bent around dashboard as agreed/paid-for
3. Improper/careless notching: some filled with weld, others not even that (could fit pinky finger between hip bar & b-hoop)
4. Welds not complete; maybe 75% of circumference (ummm... probably because the cage could not be removed from the vehicle to do so!)
5. Vehicle tub was forced to deform & crush to mount to cage (not that it's pristine, but c'mon!)
6. No gussets/triangulation included, as *I thought* we agreed on, but it's debatable
7. Floorplates from 1/8" steel instead of 3/16" or 1/4" steel, as *I thought* we agreed on, but i'm foggy on this so it's debatable too (it's not supposed to be single use, though c'mon!)
8. Seat mounts:connected nuts welded in tub sheetmetal (that'll rust out in a year), NOT IN CAGE AS AGREED/PAID-FOR; he agreed to "re-work" but see below
9. Seats mounts WAAAY TOO TALL; hit temples on crossbars, couldn't see out of windshield; he agreed to "re-work" but see below
10. Seatbelts: Lap part not mounted to cage as agreed/paid for; he agreed to "re-work" but see below
11. Cage's shoulder harness bar is so close behind the seats you can barely use the seat sliders anyway (it shoulda been U-shaped)
12. Finished behind schedule: kept promising then pushing it back

After discussing my problems with it, I paid him under his promise "It's not done until you're happy."

ROUND TWO (fix seat mounts as rework & build, mount gas tank):

1. Seats STILL mounted to tub in the rear (***AFTER AGREED UPON RE-WORK** TO MOUNT TO CAGE ONLY, including pictures)
2. Lapbelts STILL not mounted to cage
3. Seatbelts mounted 90 degrees from pull angle, forcing mounting plates to bend (and not mounted in double-shear as agreed/paid-for)

Also (despite my better judgment), he convinced me he'd build an underbed gas tank to make room for his proposed rollcage/seat fixes, however...)

Gas Tank:

1. Tank was built backwards (it's an assymetric design) DESPITE my having built a very accurate 1:1 cardboard mock-up (with measurements down to 1/16" written clearly on every dimension). He destroyed the cardboard mock-up and consequently denied building it incorrectly and I WAS CALLED A LIAR until I provided him proof (in the form of photos) that the mockup was the way I said. His response: "Oh." His solution: hack it apart and frankenstein it together.
2. Tank turned out both warped and twisted (asthetic or functional issue? i dunno yet)
3. Sender: he broke a tap off in one of the holes and left it in there, leaving me a nice gas leak anytime i'm heading uphill
4. Baffles weren't built the way I said; this forced me to add a 2nd pickup tube for when going downhill, along with a fuel selector solenoid and associated electrical control & plumbing complexity
5. Baffles: he riveted some foam rubber over his WAY-too-large baffle holes that disintegrated in the gasoline and caused problems
6. Tank mounts: not the design discussed; left tank about 2" lower than necessary; i reworked them
7. Tank mounts: 75% of the vertical surface was cut out of one of the 1x1" tubes! (afraid it woulda buckled w/ jumping/bumping, if not the weight of gas alone) Needless to say I made a new one altogether.
8. Tank skidplate: the weight of the vehicle would end up on the tank as he designed it (his response: "your truck's so high you won't have to worry about it" ...yeah right)
9. Rear skidplate attachment (to rear xmember support tube): he drilled & tapped .120 wall tube for 1/2" bolts (catching, like, one thread)
10. Filler neck: was hacked out & frankensteined on the body sticking out further (to catch trees/rocks)
11. Filler neck: must be removed to remove ( non-removeable! ...until i cut it out) rollcage
12. He burnt out my fuel-pump by leaving key-on after running it out of gas... after months of keeping it; charged me for replacement
13. Vehicle was left outside, in rainy weather; not inside as advertised, bare steel rusted (i found literally inches of rain in it when i dropped in one day)
14. Took months to complete; not weeks as agreed (rework started in October; "finished" in April--I'm STILL finishing it!)
15. He tried to charge me $2000 instead of the "$400 plus a little for the brackets" we agreed on (as he was supposedly doing this at material cost as compensation for the other shortcomings that couldn't be fixed); after much ado, we "compromised" to $900 IIRC.

This all cost me a lot of time, work, and trouble personally, plus missed out on a lot of 'wheelin & other stuff while A) waiting for him and B) fixing it myself. Some of it's important stuff, some not; some a judgment call, some not... maybe I'm a crybaby or too particular, but it's a lot of money and I've put too much of myself into my build to just settle.

If I'd given him a 3rd chance (and paid his extra $2k!), he may have offered to keep workin & re-workin "till I was happy," but I know when to fold 'em... I cut my losses and took my vehicle.

Like I said: people can decide for themselves.

 

[Strangelove]

Wow. Jay fab'd me a 3" stainless exhaust for my TurboKompressor Mini. No troubles and a decent price.

With that much cash involved why not this for $550?

 

[78Crusher]

Personally I think that rebuilding the cage would be the last resort.
I would take it to a upolsty shop and see if they can help ya.
Might be a little pricey but the turn around time would be worth it.
Sicos auto trim is near you but they are on the high side.
There is a place out by me on sandy hill road that I have heard is very reasonable.
Just my .02

 

[78Crusher]

Oh yeah
fuse box looks nice just get all of the fuses right side up!

 

[pghfj40]

My heater ducts are flex tube from a "retired" PAT bus. Look fine, work well. I'll try to remember to take a pic and post it.

...And how would one procure such a thing?

I'm not payin SOR $84 + $91 for 'em, that's for sure!

My other option I'm gonna pursue (next week) is checking the appliance parts place to see if they've any tube that'd fit.

 

[pghfj40]

Oh yeah
fuse box looks nice just get all of the fuses right side up!

Thanks. Don't want those electrons gettin confused, huh?

 

[pghfj40]

Wow. Jay fab'd me a 3" stainless exhaust for my TurboKompressor Mini. No troubles and a decent price.

I think Jay tried to give me what he thought I wanted (or should want?). I initially said I wanted the seat sliders if they'd fit... well as it turned out they made the seats too high with the tank in-cab, but he wanted to make them work no matter... in hindsight he shoulda given up on the sliders and hard-mounted the seats on the cage. Or I shoulda demanded ditching the sliders during the re-work; maybe I woulda got the seats & belts mounted right then. Oh well: live & learn.

Ironically, the shoulder bar's too close to make the sliders truly worthwhile, plus he broke the handle off one of the sliders anyway!

With that much cash involved why not this for $550?

Again in hindsight... there's not even any question I'd go with MetalTech. My then-wife-to-be convinced me that I should just pay somebody to do it, since I'd still have to weld it in or pay someone $$ to (I didn't quite trust my welding skills yet for a cage)... plus Jay said: "We can make a better lookin cage than that."

Since then, Metaltech has started offering them prebuilt and powdercoated too... IMHO a good value @ < $1500... you know what you're getting, and you know it'll fit right... AND it's a Cruiser-based vendor. I'd have bucked up for that (even over buying a bender--pretty sure).

I think I'll still get one of those if i ever get a new tub (mount holes will be totally f'd if i do it w/ my current one).

 

[pghfj40]

So I got the rear soft top window to zip shut over the cage this weekend.

I decided to check & see how easy it is to bend the rear supports inward... and as it turns out: pretty easy.

I therefore decided to implement an "interim solution" until I can get the new rear supports (like those in the pic above) in there... I strapped a 10k# ratchet strap around them and cranked on it till the window zipped in. Problem solved... for now.

So now it's pretty much road ready (for slow stuff--it really needs a swaybar to be truly road-worthy)...

I just need to:

• get some flares on
• install a side mirror
• get'r inspected
• hook up my heater hoses
• build a rear tire-carrier bumper
• fix a wiring error (i used resistance wire AND a dash ind lamp on the alternator field wire--too much current-limit so only self-excites @ ^RPM)
• build a swaybar/mounts
• paint it one color!

The cruiser now has some road miles on it, after seven long years.

...cell phone pic

 

[pghfj40]

Oh--I installed the hard doors too... but didn't get any pix since then.

 

[sandcrawler]

I'll be sad to see it painted one color - i've kinda grown attached to the grey/green two-tone thing

 

[phred]

see if ever make you a cage again. besides, i didnt destroy the mockup you tard... didnt you wonder why your fuel tank was mushy?

 

[pghfj40]

see if ever make you a cage again. besides, i didnt destroy the mockup you tard... didnt you wonder why your fuel tank was mushy?

hi scott.